Dawn of the Dimwits

I decided I was tired of causing mayhem in the streets. I decided it would be more fun to do it in a shopping mall. As usual, I stole another car from the street and headed straight for the Vice City Shopping Center. I had to go through two loading screens to get there, but I made it with only two stars in my arrest meter. At first, I thought it would be just another stint in the mall. Boy, was I wrong!

The parking lot was full of cars, but there was no one around. Some of the cars were turned over. Others were on fire. Even more appeared to have been in collisions. On the front of the mall was a large sign written in leaking red ink--When Hell is full, the dead will walk the earth.

"Damn," I said. "Someone must have beat me to it." Making sure that my arsenal was full, I decided to start slow this time and pulled out the baseball bat. I got out of the car and ran straight into the mall while screeching like an Amazon.

Imagine my surprise when I realized that no one was in the mall. The place was dead empty. Well, it was empty, or so I thought. All I could hear was the annoying mall music playing in the background. The escalators still worked, so I hopped onto one and headed for the second floor. When I got there, there was still no one around.

"Where the hell is everybody?" I then heard something fall over downstairs. I went to a rail and looked over. I saw some idiot walking around as if he were drunk. He had knocked over some mannequins in a display in the middle of the building. "Dumbass," I said to myself. "Hey!" I called down. "What the hell is your problem?"

The person stopped and turned to look up at me. He didn't look too healthy. His skin was blue and peeling in several places. That was one hell of a sunburn. His hair was a mess. The only sound that came out of him was a low moaning. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was a zombie.

"Oh, you're going down."

I heard some shuffling behind me. I turned and saw someone approaching me. This guy had obviously been dead for some time. He even smelled rotten. I caught on pretty quickly. "Oh, no you don't!" He reached out as if to grab me. I swung with the baseball bat and hit him right across the head. His head soared over the railing while his body shuffled around some more. I wisely took the opportunity to run for it.

There was an elevator straight ahead. I reached for the button, then stopped short of pressing it. In these situations, elevators were death traps. The idiot playing this game had enough movies and played Resident Evil: Code Veronica X enough times for me to know. I whipped out my trusty flame-thrower, hit the button, and stood back. To my disappointment, the elevator had humans in it. I lowered the flame-thrower so they'd stop screaming at me.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked. One of them jumped up and down and pointed behind me. I turned and lit up the bastard behind me. The zombie actually screamed and ran away, or rather shuffled as fast as it could manage, in the other direction.

One of the people in the elevator stepped out and shot the zombie in the head. "Come on," he said. "Let's get to the hide out." I didn't bother to ask any questions or even wait for an invitation. I followed them to a hobby store. The leader lifted the gate, let everyone into the store, and lowered the gate. Someone went into the back and switched on the lights.

"Okay," I said. "Will someone finally tell me what's going on?"

The woman beside me shivered. "It's the end of the world!" she screeched. "Hell is full, and the dead are walking the earth."

"You've got to be kidding me," I said.

"No," she said. "I'm serious. Didn't you see what's going on out there? They're trying to eat us. If any of us dies, we'll become one of them, too. I had to shoot my own children because they were trying to eat me."

"Are you sure they weren't just telling you how much they hate you?"

The woman lifted her head. "Why would they do that? I was just taking them underwear shopping. Every teenager needs a decent pair of underwear, even if it is frilly with lace. What would they be protesting?"

I rolled my eyes. "You just answered your own question."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." I turned to the man who had let us into the shop. "What about you?"

"I had to shoot my roommate. He really reeked, as if he'd been dead for several hours. When I went into his room, he reached out for me and started moaning. There was no way in hell I'd let him have his way with me, so I shot him right then and there."

I had heard enough. "There's nothing going on in my part of the city. Today has been pretty typical for me."

"It's a conspiracy!" the woman shouted. "The government is covering up something!"

"Whatever." I walked over to an aisle and looked over some role- playing games. I found the latest edition of Dungeons and Dragons. "Hey! Does anyone want to play?" That quickly softened up the mood. I automatically became the Dungeon Master. My character was a female chaotic good half-elf ranger named Aerowyn. (Pronounce that however you wish.) The woman who shot her children, Cammy, made a female chaotic evil dwarf paladin named Koren.

"You can't make her chaotic evil," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because my character is chaotic good. They would never get along."

"Says who?"

"Says me. I'm the Dungeon Master!"

"Fine! I'll make her lawful evil then!"

"You live to irritate, don't you?"

The man, Mikey, made a male lawful good human sorcerer named Garek. After getting the character details out of the way, I decided the first adventure would center around storming a labyrinth for some gold. Needless to say, I goaded Cammy into every single booby trap I could think of. She finally lost it when her character was killed by a dragon.

"That's it!" she said. "Mikey, cast the Resurrection spell."

"He can't," I said.

"Why not?"

"He doesn't have the skill. You're dead, dead, dead. Your only option is to create a new character."

Our conversation was interrupted by a banging on the metal barrier at the front of the store. A zombie was beating on it. Thank goodness he was too stupid to figure out what he was doing. Regardless, I whipped out the flame-thrower and lit him up. He shuffled away in flames while moaning and groaning the whole time.

"Eat that dead head!"

"Dammit!" Mikey said. "Now they know where we are!"

We watched in horror as more of the bastards congregated outside the store. "Now what!" Cammy said. "There's no way we can get out of here. We can't get past them." The zombies began pushing against the barrier. It was ready to give way under the force. Cammy began to panic. She whipped out a gun and began shooting at them. When she ran out of bullets, she threw it at them.

"Where did you get that gun?" I asked.

"You're not the only one with a Playstation 2 controller." She whipped it out and began putting in a code to restore the gun she lost. I grabbed the controller and threw it at the zombies. The woman ran after it. When she was close enough, one of the zombies reached out and grabbed her. Acting quickly, I pulled out the baseball bat and began whacking. It wasn't until a few minutes later I realized I'd been whacking only Cammy. The zombie released her and let her drop.

"Hey bitch," the zombie said in slurred speech, "what the hell did you do that for?"

I was surprised that the zombie could talk at all. "What did you say?"

"You killed the bitch. Good for you."

I was really confused. "Since when did zombies talk?"

"Zombies? Where?" The zombie looked all around but apparently didn't see the other zombies around him. "I don't see no damn zombies."

I waved a hand at the others around him. "What the hell do you call this?"

"Huh? Oh, these are my buddies from that banging party last night."

"Now I'm really confused. What were you doing at a party?"

The zombie staggered a bit. "We were throwing a banging party last night. The hobos didn't want to do it in the street, so we broke into the mall last night, got drunk as hell, and threw a party."

"You mean, you're not the walking dead?"

"Walking dead? Where?"

I slapped my forehead in frustration. "Well, that explains the bad clothes, the bad smells, and the bad behavior. They're just a bunch of hobos who threw a party in the mall and got drunk."

Mikey pulled out his gun. "Let's kill them!" He shot at everyone he could see. When he ran out of bullets, he grabbed a machete out of Cammy's infinitely deep pockets and began hacking away. When the final hobo was down, he opened the barrier and ran off. I stepped out, aimed, and shot him through the back of the head. I grabbed the Dungeons and Dragon book and walked out of the mall. Every drunk hobo that came my way was greeted with a bullet. When I stepped outside, I realized I was tired and wanted to go home. Go figure. It was starting to get dark. I looked at my watch and realized it was almost time for dinner.